Parable of the Butterfly Garden: Growing Beauty from the Manure

By Jean Anna Hilker

Parable of the Butterfly Garden: Growing Beauty from the Manure is a comparison of the struggles the author endures as she creates and maintains a butterfly garden to the struggles she, as a woman living in a broken world, faces day-by-day. The book creates a treasure map guiding the reader into faith when circumstances attack.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644715055

Book preview

Prologue

When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the twelve, asked about the stories. He told them, You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight…

—Mark 4:10–11 (MSG)

Brilliant flashes of color, sparkling in the early morning sun, lighted on a flower blossom. The butterfly drew in the plant’s sweet nectar and then fluttered up to seek another sugary confection. Drawn by the alluring fragrance and rainbow colors in my flowerbed, the delicate, shimmering insects have honored my efforts by visiting my garden. I have always been fascinated by these amazing creatures—beginning life as a nasty-looking caterpillar and emerging from its cocoon as an elegant, breathtaking butterftly. Now as I sit on my porch, watching several butterflies flitting from blossom to blossom in a graceful, sun-kissed dance, my thoughts go back in time to how this joyful garden began.

Here is where I sit most mornings to read my Bible, have morning devotions, and spend time in Jesus’s presence. These times bring peace to my heart, comfort to my soul, ground me in my Savior’s love, and enrich my day-to-day life. And today, as I pray my gratitude to His kindness, He blesses me with an insight—how the creation of my butterfly garden mirrors my Christian life. In my heart, I feel a bidding—here is a parable, write it down.

1

The Dream

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

—Jeremiah 29:11

My husband and I had agreed that as soon as our second daughter graduated from college, we would move to Florida. The doctor had told him his asthma would only continue to worsen with each Pennsylvania winter, and it looked like Arizona or Florida were our best choices for mild winters and less extremes of temperature. We’d been going to Florida for several years to visit my snowbird parents over the Christmas holiday. We knew the area and I loved the water. Lakes, ocean, and gulf were hard to come by in Arizona, so Florida it was.

The transition was not easy. In the four years we waited for graduation, our older daughter had married and we had an adorable grandson to love on. Now, instead of our whole family moving, both daughters had established themselves in the north, and we were moving on our own. New jobs to be found? Check. New church family to be welcomed into? Check. New home to be built? Check. None of those checks came with ease—more like with blood, sweat, and tears. But our precious Savior, Jesus Christ, was true to His promise to never leave us or forsake us.

How fourteen years could go by so quickly, I can’t imagine. Fill them up with trips back to PA for funerals of parents and a sibling, births of three more grandchildren, working long hours in a fulfilling job, and suddenly we’re looking at retirement. Now we’re saying, We need to make some new plans. It was time to downsize—less yard work, less housework, more traveling and fun!

Our search brought us to what I call my cottage home. Room enough for northern visitors but small enough to be cozy. For me the best part was a screened-in back porch where I could sit every morning to greet the new day with a cup of tea, my Bibles and daily devotionals, and spend time in prayer. I could look out across the lawns and see a portion of a large lake—my daily dose of liquid encouragement. And there, on my porch, I would catch an occasional glimpse of all types of butterflies. They were visitors from my neighbor’s butterfly garden several houses away.

Our home’s previous owner had planted a narrow garden along the screened area of our porch. He had placed Florida plants in this garden and I abhorred them. All leaves—no blossoms. Yes, they lived year-round, but where was the color, the fragrance, the excitement of new blooms? Where were the butterflies, honeybees, and hummingbirds? They would fly past on their way back and forth from my neighbor’s garden, but how I longed to see them nestle into a brightly colored blossom and fill their tummies with the precious nectar from my own garden.

It took two years into retirement to adjust to my new home and my new lifestyle of not having a job and thus every day scheduled. I don’t take to change very easily, so God usually has to drag, push, or toss me into a new phase of my journey with Him. After two years of despising those ridiculous leafy plants, one at the end of the porch died. I gladly ripped it out and replaced it with a lovely, southern, ever-blooming, butterfly attracting flower. The first time a butterfly alighted and drew in the nectar, my dream was born. I will convince my husband to help me get rid of these old, ugly plants, and I will plant a small butterfly garden of my own.

Now, as this is a parable, you will need to understand the symbolism of the birth of my dream. We will start with the ugly, leafy, non-blooming plants. That was my life for about the first thirty years. Although we are all born sinners thanks to Adam’s sin, God sees infants and toddlers as innocents preparing to make their own choices for good or evil. My choices became bias at an early age. At around age five, a close relative sexually molested me. When I told my mother, she told me to just walk away. Her advice, as it was, helped me to see that I would have to be sure never to be alone with him again.

As I look back many years later, I realize that even though it only occurred a handful of times and I was never raped, the rest of my life was forever shaped by the experience. All self-esteem was sucked out of me and, after my mother’s abrupt response, I got the idea I was dirty and shameful. My relationship with my father was dealt a terrible blow because I felt he should have protected me and stood up for me. He never did. Years later, I began to realize that my mother probably never told him. My shyness in elementary school was really an extremely low self-image. I developed a belief that I needed to be perfect to measure up to everyone else’s ordinary. I couldn’t answer in class for fear I would be wrong. I was developing an intense victim attitude, and as I got older, the anger developed into physical ticks and anxiety attacks. These were either ignored or punished by my parents.

As I grew, I was somewhat able